


fancied fact and spaceful time

by miabicicletta



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-01
Updated: 2013-12-01
Packaged: 2018-01-03 05:17:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1066209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miabicicletta/pseuds/miabicicletta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I mean, for a moment we’ll obviously overlook the fact that you’re not <i>exactly</i> the intrepid, thrill-seeking type who'd skip off on a lark with a cheeky, madcap alien time-traveler,” she says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	fancied fact and spaceful time

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from [the great advantage to being alive](http://plagiarist.com/poetry/9240/) by ee cummings. I think it's quite fitting for Doctor Who, and I love that Fitz (and possibly Simmons) are Whovians.

“Ach, come on, Jemma,” Fitz says. “ _Doctor Who_ is on. How are you doing paperwork still? For God’s sake, woman. Sort out your priorities.” 

Simmons rolls her eyes from her perch on the floor, pen scritching across a page. “I know, I know. Far be it from me to miss a chance to ogle Amelia Pond and her legs.” 

“I don’t ogle,” Fitz says, glancing over his shoulder. “I like her. She’s got spirit.” 

“Because she drags her poor boyfriend across the universe on a big interstellar roadtrip? I’m fairly sure that’s just called being bossy.” She signs her name with a flourish, adding the page to the red folder that marks all her toxicology reports. 

“Coming from a world-class authority on bossyness and the dragging of people around the universe, I’d be forced to support that argument,” Fitz answers. 

She fake scowls at him (well, he’s reasonably certain it’s a fake). “Oh, shut up.” 

From the monitor he’s rigged to the wall in his pod, Amy Pond cries out. “Doctorrrr!” 

Jemma’s nose wrinkles. “She’s a bit dramatic."

"She's adventurous," Fitz corrects. "Reminds of someone I know, in fact. Likes to get out of the lab, now and then. ‘See the world,’ she said. Get into highly uncomfortable and tenuous situations with Latin American guerrilla commandos. Hunt down rogue agents with unnatural comic-book villain capabilities. Dismantle Very Sudden End of World-type weaponry!” He gestures theatrically. “Forgive me if I thought you'd have a bit more appreciation for the heroine of the hour.” 

“You just can’t resist a Scottish girl." Simmons says, thumbing through her pages. 

“Shows what you know,” Fitz says. On screen, Amy Pond vamps a little for some large and blandly attractive Grant Ward stand-in. “She is a bit much, isn’t she?” 

Simmons makes final few marks, signs her report, and shuffles the pages and folders into orderly piles. “So,” she asks. “Where would you go?” 

“What?” Fitz asks, eyes on screen. 

“I mean, for a moment we’ll obviously overlook the fact that you’re not _exactly_ the intrepid, thrill-seeking type to skip off on a lark with a cheeky, madcap alien time-traveler,” she says to Fitz’s glare. “Just an observation,” she says, holding her hands up. 

"Thanks, Indiana Simmons," he grumbles.

“Of course. So, original question: Where would you go?” She props herself up on her elbow, looking up at him. In the last light of whatever time zone they’re passing through, a wash of gold falls across her hair. “What wonders of the universe do you want to see, Leo Fitz?” Reaching past his photos – their graduation from uni; their first day at the Academy; their first assignment at SciOps – for the little blue TARDIS on his nightstand, she hands it up to him. 

“I don’t know,” Fitz says. “I never really thought about it. It’s just a kid’s show, Jemma.” 

Simmons rolls her eyes. “You’ve no sense of romance, Leo. Allow me to appeal, then, to your heart of hearts: Wouldn’t you give anything to see how they built all those wonders of the world, thousands of years ago? See the Great Wall being erected or the Pyramids at Giza as they were raised, stone by stone?” 

“Not sure I’d want to get up close and personal with slave-driving on that scale,” Leo answers. “Or on any scale, come to think.” 

“Fine. Christopher Wren and his churches. da Vinci tinkering away in his lab?” She grins. “You’d have to appreciate that on some level,” she grins. “Being our own Leonardo.” 

“Not my name,” he says, scowling at the old joke. “No matter how many times you tell people that or how many are moronic enough to believe you.”

“So maybe you head off in the opposite direction. Go see what the great minds of the future have done for humanity? What your legacy is in fifty years or so, hmm? All the brilliant things you’ve done?”

It’s weird to think about, because, honestly, with all that’s happened in the world in the last few years – Iron Man and the Tesseract and Asgard and aliens across parallel universes – time travel doesn’t seem as outlandish as it once did. Suddenly anything seems possible. Anything at all. "I don’t know,” he says, tentatively. “I’m not sure I could stand that. What if I got there and found out something terrible. Like, how I died, or that people thought everything I did was foolish or useless. I’m not sure I could take it, in which case I'd rather not know."

She looks at him with her big, serious eyes. Leo averts his gaze. Sometimes she’s too much to look at, Jemma. He’s afraid of what he’s starting to see when he does. Of what possibilities it might mean, when all his experiments in that field have gone utterly wrong. 

“That’s what I’d do,” Jemma says, definitely. “I’d go see what it was all for. What it all came to, in the end. And what you do won’t be foolish, Leo. It could never be. And besides,” she grins. “How could it, when I’m around to keep you from getting up to all sorts of nonsense," she grins and pokes him in the side.

She's mad for adventure, Jemma. Because she’s incurably curious. It's what makes her a great scientist. 

“Might not be too bad,” he says, turning the the little blue TARDIS in his hands. “You’ll be there, then? In fifty years or so?” 

“Idiot,” Jemma says. Out of the blue, she leans over and kisses him, and he’s almost too shocked to reciprocate. 

For the rest of his life, Fitz will think of that moment when he calls to mind the properties of general relativity: How time can stretch out, how it can shrink; how a moment can last forever and pass in an instant, just the same. It's like when you're kissing a beautiful girl, he'll tell his students one day. Everything slows down, but goes so fast. And if you're moving fast enough, a whole lifetime can go by in less time than it takes for tea. That's relativity, he'll say. And his students, being young and wise in the most useless of ways, will smile and nod and roll their eyes. But, then, they'll also know about the _other_ Dr. Fitzsimmons, and figure he's probably right to think so. 

She breaks away. “Where else would I be?" He stares at her in wonder as she curls up on his bed, settling in like a cat curling up before a fire. “You know, luckily for you, it just so happens, that _I’m_ a doctor,” she says, reaching behind her ears and twirling a pen between her fingers. “And we’ve sort of got a box…”

“Almost a box,” Fitz says, his throat thick. “Kind of a box. A plane-shaped box, we’ll call it. And it travels in time and space, even.” 

“Terribly tragic, though, how our box-that’s-a-plane is limited to just the one planet for the time being.” 

“That’ll change once Jane and Selvig figure out how to open their own bridge to Asgard,” Fitz counters. 

“And then…”

He doesn’t quite know what to say. That he’s happy to stay here forever, but if the world isn’t big enough a place to explore for Jemma Simmons, well. Then the universe will have to do. 

“Who knows,” Fitz says, and taps her nose exactly once.


End file.
